Online groups (e.g., groups found in Google Groups, AOL Groups, MSN Groups, Yahoo! Groups, Usenet, and other online user groups and message boards) are increasing in popularity and use as the number of computer users continues to grow. However, as users create and/or visit more groups, it becomes increasingly cumbersome for such users to keep track of and easily return to the groups that interest them.
At present, some web sites create a list of all the groups that a user has joined. For example My Groups at Yahoo! Groups creates a list of all the groups that a user belongs to in Yahoo! Groups, lets the user manually rank order these groups, and displays a list with links to the top 25 groups chosen by the user. However, a Yahoo! Groups user must manually adjust and maintain his top 25 list as his interests change over time. Moreover, a user's top 25 list is only present on his Yahoo! Groups front page and there is nothing to indicate which groups in his top 25 have had activity (e.g., new listings, postings, or other messages) since his last visit.